Tehreem Ali's Blog, page 9

Cassandra Clare

                            Cassandra Clare

 

While reading quotes on Goodreads.com, I came across this one, as quoted in City of Bones:-

“Have you fallen in love with the wrong person yet?’

Jace said, “Unfortunately, Lady of the Haven, my one true love remains myself.”

…”At least,” she said, “you don’t have to worry about rejection, Jace Wayland.”

“Not necessarily. I turn myself down occasionally, just to keep it interesting.” 

I instantly related with Jace since that is very like something I would have said too, under similar circumstances. Call it love at first sight – or love at first read, in this case, but I was intrigued by this character the moment I read about him.

And then I read this one, also said by Jace: Declarations of love amuse me. Especially when unrequited.

After that, I hunted down all of Cassandra’s books and didn’t stop till I had downloaded all of them, firstly The Mortal Instruments Series, of course. There is only one word I have for these books: beautiful…in every sense, literally. I started The Mortal Instruments and didn’t stop reading; in a week I had finished the last one[the 5th book since at the time 6th wasn't released yet].

Vampires, werewolves, warlocks, faeries, demons – all mixed up with tons of actions, adventure, mythology and magic, that is all Cassandra Clare’s writings are about. Out of all this, meaning and beauty is bound to be noticed. If I were given a choice to choose the sort of fantasy I would like to live in for the rest of my life, I would not hesitate to choose the one created by Clare. There is all one can wish for in her books. They keep you glued to the chair and you never get enough. Food for the thoughts, that is what they are. Her characters portray the genuine side of human nature and it is quite easy to fall in love with them. Now that they have adapted Clare’s most amazing series The Mortal instruments for movies, the excitement in the roller coaster that is her story knows no limits. Anyone who loves action with a tinge of adventure and romance and comedy should totally check out Cassandra Clare’s works. She is probably the next J.K. Rowling the world has yet to see. Below is a collection of all her wonderful, amazing works.

The Mortal Instruments Series
City of Bones (Book 1)

When fifteen-year-old Clary Fray heads out to the Pandemonium Club in New York City, she hardly expects to witness a murder― much less a murder committed by three teenagers covered with strange tattoos and brandishing bizarre weapons. Then the body disappears into thin air. It’s hard to call the police when the murderers are invisible to everyone else and when there is nothing―not even a smear of blood―to show that a boy has died. Or was he a boy?

This is Clary’s first meeting with the Shadowhunters, warriors dedicated to ridding the earth of demons. It’s also her first encounter with Jace, a Shadowhunter who looks a little like an angel and acts a lot like a jerk. Within twenty-four hours Clary is pulled into Jace’s world with a vengeance, when her mother disappears and Clary herself is attacked by a demon. But why would demons be interested in ordinary mundanes like Clary and her mother? And how did Clary suddenly get the Sight? The Shadowhunters would like to know…

Exotic and gritty, exhilarating and utterly gripping, Cassandra Clare’s ferociously entertaining fantasy takes readers on a wild ride that they will never want to end.

Download ebook - Book 1 City of Bones

City of Ashes (Books 2)

Clary Fray just wishes that her life would go back to normal. But what’s normal when you’re a demon-slaying Shadowhunter, your mother is in a magically induced coma, and you can suddenly see Downworlders like werewolves, vampires, and faeries? If Clary left the world of the Shadowhunters behind, it would mean more time with her best friend, Simon, who’s becoming more than a friend. But the Shadowhunting world isn’t ready to let her go — especially her handsome, infuriating, newfound brother, Jace. And Clary’s only chance to help her mother is to track down rogue Shadowhunter Valentine, who is probably insane, certainly evil — and also her father.

To complicate matters, someone in New York City is murdering Downworlder children. Is Valentine behind the killings — and if he is, what is he trying to do? When the second of the Mortal Instruments, the Soul-Sword, is stolen, the terrifying Inquisitor arrives to investigate and zooms right in on Jace. How can Clary stop Valentine if Jace is willing to betray everything he believes in to help their father?

In this breathtaking sequel to City of Bones, Cassandra Clare lures her readers back into the dark grip of New York City’s Downworld, where love is never safe and power becomes the deadliest temptation.

Download ebook - Book 2 City of Ashes

City of Glass (Book 3)

To save her mother’s life, Clary must travel to the City of Glass, the ancestral home of the Shadowhunters – never mind that entering the city without permission is against the Law, and breaking the Law could mean death. To make things worse, she learns that Jace does not want her there, and Simon has been thrown in prison by the Shadowhunters, who are deeply suspicious of a vampire who can withstand sunlight.

As Clary uncovers more about her family’s past, she finds an ally in mysterious Shadowhunter Sebastian. With Valentine mustering the full force of his power to destroy all Shadowhunters forever, their only chance to defeat him is to fight alongside their eternal enemies. But can Downworlders and Shadowhunters put aside their hatred to work together? While Jace realizes exactly how much he’s willing to risk for Clary, can she harness her newfound powers to help save the Glass City – whatever the cost?

Love is a mortal sin and the secrets of the past prove deadly as Clary and Jace face down Valentine in the third installment of the New York Timesbestselling series The Mortal Instruments.

Download ebook -  Book 3 City of Glass

City of Fallen Angels (Book 4)

The Mortal War is over, and sixteen-year-old Clary Fray is back home in New York, excited about all the possibilities before her. She’s training to become a Shadowhunter and to use her unique power. Her mother is getting married to the love of her life. Downworlders and Shadowhunters are at peace at last. And—most importantly of all—she can finally call Jace her boyfriend.

But nothing comes without a price.

Someone is murdering Shadowhunters, provoking tensions between Downworlders and Shadowhunters that could lead to a second, bloody war. Clary’s best friend, Simon, can’t help her—his mother just found out that he’s a vampire, and now he’s homeless. When Jace begins to pull away from her without explaining why, Clary is forced to delve into the heart of a mystery whose solution reveals her worst nightmare: she herself has set in motion a terrible chain of events that could lead to her losing everything she loves. Even Jace.

The stakes are higher than ever in the #1 New York Times bestselling fourth installment of the Mortal Instruments series.

Download ebook - Book 4 City of Fallen Angels

City of Lost Souls (Book 5)

The New York Times bestselling Mortal Instruments continues—and so do the thrills and danger for Jace, Clary, and Simon.

What price is too high to pay, even for love? When Jace and Clary meet again, Clary is horrified to discover that the demon Lilith’s magic has bound her beloved Jace together with her evil brother Sebastian, and that Jace has become a servant of evil. The Clave is out to destroy Sebastian, but there is no way to harm one boy without destroying the other. As Alec, Magnus, Simon, and Isabelle wheedle and bargain with Seelies, demons, and the merciless Iron Sisters to try to save Jace, Clary plays a dangerous game of her own. The price of losing is not just her own life, but Jace’s soul. She’s willing to do anything for Jace, but can she still trust him? Or is he truly lost?

Love. Blood. Betrayal. Revenge. Darkness threatens to claim the Shadowhunters in the harrowing fifth book of the Mortal Instruments series.

Download ebook - Book 5 City of Lost Souls

City of Heavenly Fire (Book 6)

In this dazzling and long-awaited conclusion to the acclaimed Mortal Instruments series, Clary and her friends fight the greatest evil they have ever faced: Clary’s own brother.

Sebastian Morgenstern is on the move, systematically turning Shadowhunter against Shadowhunter. Bearing the Infernal Cup, he transforms Shadowhunters into creatures out of nightmare, tearing apart families and lovers as the ranks of his Endarkened army swell.

The embattled Shadowhunters withdraw to Idris – but not even the famed demon towers of Alicante can keep Sebastian at bay. And with the Nephilim trapped in Idris, who will guard the world against demons?

When one of the greatest betrayals the Nephilim have ever known is revealed, Clary, Jace, Isabelle, Simon, and Alec must flee – even if their journey takes them deep into the demon realms, where no Shadowhunter has set foot before, and from which no human being has ever returned…

Love will be sacrificed and lives lost in the terrible battle for the fate of the word in the thrilling final installment of the classic urban fantasy series The Mortal Instruments!

Download ebook - Book 6 City of Heavenly Fire

 

The Infernal Devices Trilogy
Clockwork Angel (Book 1)

In a time when Shadowhunters are barely winning the fight against the forces of darkness, one battle will change the course of history forever. Welcome to the Infernal Devices trilogy, a stunning and dangerous prequel to the New York Times bestselling Mortal Instruments series.

The year is 1878. Tessa Gray descends into London’s dark supernatural underworld in search of her missing brother. She soon discovers that her only allies are the demon-slaying Shadowhunters—including Will and Jem, the mysterious boys she is attracted to. Soon they find themselves up against the Pandemonium Club, a secret organization of vampires, demons, warlocks, and humans. Equipped with a magical army of unstoppable clockwork creatures, the Club is out to rule the British Empire, and only Tessa and her allies can stop them….

Download ebook -  Book 1 Clockwork Angel

Clockwork Prince (Book 2)

In magical Victorian London, orphan Tessa found safety with the Shadowhunters, until traitors betray her to the Magister. He wants to marry her, but so do self-destructive Will and fiercely devoted Jem. Mage Magnus Bane returns to help them. Secrets to her parentage lie with the mist-shrouded Yorkshire Institute’s aged manager Alyosius Starkweather.

Download ebook - Book 2 Clockwork Prince

Clockwork Princess (Book 3)

Tessa Gray should be happy—aren’t all brides happy? Yet as she prepares for her wedding, a net of shadows begins to tighten around the Shadowhunters of the London Institute. A new demon appears, one linked by blood and secrecy to Mortmain, the man who plans to use his army of pitiless automatons, the Infernal Devices, to destroy the Shadowhunters. Mortmain needs only one last item to complete his plan. He needs Tessa. And Jem and Will, the boys who lay equal claim to Tessa’s heart, will do anything to save her.

Download ebook -  Book 3 Clockwork Princess

 

 

 

 

The Bane Chronicles
What Really Happened in Peru (Book 1)

Fans of The Mortal Instruments and The Infernal Devices know that Magnus Bane is banned from Peru—and now they can find out why. One of ten adventures in The Bane Chronicles.

There are good reasons Peru is off-limits to Magnus Bane. Follow Magnus’s Peruvian escapades as he drags his fellow warlocks Ragnor Fell and Catarina Loss into trouble, learns several instruments (which he plays shockingly), dances (which he does shockingly), and disgraces his host nation by doing something unspeakable to the Nazca Lines.

This standalone e-only short story illuminates the life of the enigmatic Magnus Bane, whose alluring personality populates the pages of the #1 New York Times bestselling series, The Mortal Instruments and The Infernal Devices series. This story in The Bane Chronicles, What Really Happened in Peru, is written by Sarah Rees Brennan and Cassandra Clare.

Download ebook -  Book 1 What Really Happened in Peru

The Runaway Queen (Book 2)

Magnus Bane has a royal role in the French Revolution—if the angry mobs don’t spoil his spells. One of ten adventures in The Bane Chronicles.

While in France, immortal warlock Magnus Bane finds himself attempting to rescue the royal family from the horrors of the French Revolution—after being roped into this mess by a most attractive count. Naturally, the daring escape calls for invisible air balloons…

This standalone e-only short story illuminates the life of the enigmatic Magnus Bane, whose alluring personality populates the pages of the #1New York Times bestselling series, The Mortal Instruments and The Infernal Devices series. This story in The Bane Chronicles, The Runaway Queen, is written by Maureen Johnson and Cassandra Clare.

Download ebook -  Book 2 The Runaway Queen

Vampires, Scones, and Edmund Herondale (Book 3)

Magnus Bane leverages his alliances with Downworlders and Shadowhunters on a venture to Victorian London. One of ten adventures in The Bane Chronicles.

When immortal warlock Magnus Bane attends preliminary peace talks between the Shadowhunters and the Downworlders in Victorian London, he is charmed by two very different people: the vampire Camille Belcourt and the young Shadowhunter, Edmund Herondale. Will winning hearts mean choosing sides?

This standalone e-only short story illuminates the life of the enigmatic Magnus Bane, whose alluring personality populates the pages of the #1New York Times bestselling series, The Mortal Instruments and The Infernal Devices series. This story in The Bane Chronicles, Vampires, Scones, and Edmund Herondale, is written by Sarah Rees Brennan and Cassandra Clare.

Download ebook - Book 3 Vampires, Scones and Edmund Herondale

The Midnight Heir (Book 4)

In Edwardian London, Magnus Bane discovers old friends and new enemies—including the son of his former comrade Will Herondale. One of ten adventures in The Bane Chronicles.

Magnus thought he would never return to London, but he is lured by a handsome offer from Tatiana Blackthorn, whose plans—involving her beautiful young ward—are far more sinister than Magnus even suspects. In London at the turn of the century, Magnus finds old friends, and meets a very surprising young man . . . the sixteen-year-old James Herondale.

This standalone e-only short story illuminates the life of the enigmatic Magnus Bane, whose alluring personality populates the pages of the #1 New York Times bestselling series, The Mortal Instruments and The Infernal Devices series. This story in The Bane Chronicles is written by Sarah Rees Brennan and Cassandra Clare.

Download ebook -  Book 4 The Midnight Heir

The Rise of the Hotel Dumort (Book 5)

In 1920s Manhattan, Magnus Bane hobnobs with the elite at a glamorous Jazz Age hotspot.

The immortal Magnus Bane is making the most of his time in the Roaring Twenties: He’s settled into New York society and is thriving among the fashionable jazz set. And there is nowhere better to see and be seen than the glamorous Hotel Dumort, a glittering new addition to the Manhattan landscape. But a different type of glamour may be at play…

Download ebook -  Book 5 The Rise of the Hotel Dumort

Saving Raphael Santiago (Book 6)

A Manhattan teen—Raphael Santiago—is missing, and Magnus Bane must track him down before it’s too late.

In 1950s New York City, a distraught mother hires Magnus Bane to find her missing son, Raphael. But even if he can be found, is Raphael beyond saving?

Download ebook -  Book 6 Saving Raphael Santiago

The Fall of the Hotel Dumort (Book 7)

Magnus Bane watches the once-glamorous Hotel Dumort become something else altogether in 1970s New York City.

Fifty years after the Jazz Age rise of the Hotel Dumort, immortal warlock Magnus Bane knows the Manhattan landmark is on the decline. The once-beautiful Hotel Dumort has fallen into a decayed thing, a ruin, as dead as a place can be. But the vampires don’t mind…

Download ebook -  Book 7 The Fall of the Hotel Dumort

What to Buy the Shadowhunter Who Has Everything (Book 8)

Magnus Bane may or may not be dating Alec Lightwood, but he definitely needs to find him the perfect birthday present.

Set in the time between City of Ashes and City of Glass, warlock Magnus Bane is determined to find the best birthday present possible for Alec Lightwood, the Shadowhunter he may or may not be dating. And he’s also got to deal with the demon he’s conjured up for a very irritating client…

Download ebook -  Book 8 What To Buy The Shadowhunter

The Last Stand of the New York Institute (Book 9)

Magnus meets Valentine in battle as the Circle attacks the Downworlders of New York City.

In the time of the Uprising, Valentine’s Circle goes after Downworlders in New York…and the Shadowhunters of the Institute must decide whether to join him, or fight with Magnus and his kind. This is the first time Magnus sees Jocelyn, Luke, and Stephen—but not the last. It is not long before Jocelyn seeks him out…

Download ebook -  Book 9 The Last Stand Of The New York Institute

The Course of True Love [and First Dates] (Book 10)

Magnus Bane and Alec Lightwood might fall in love—but first they have a first date.

When Magnus Bane, warlock, meets Alec Lightwood, Shadowhunter, sparks fly. And what happens on their first date lights a flame…

Download ebook -  Book 10 The Course of True Love (And First Dates)

Filed under: Books Tagged: Cassandra Clare, Jace Wayland, Mortal Instruments, Shadowhunters

Dan Brown

                                    Dan Brown

 

Everyone of us has a hero – someone we look up to, someone who influences us. For me, that person is Dan Brown. He introduced me to the world of writing, made me see the beauty in words and just how our thoughts can change every head and heart. The first book I read that made me fall in love with the world of books was Dan’s The Da Vinci Code. It is one of those books that just keep you glued to them until you reach the end. I owe much to my creative writing to Dan.

I’m not a realist. Along with that, I also don’t believe in the word impossible. Not included in my dictionary of logic – thanks to Dan Brown, who made me strengthen my belief in the fact that everything is possible by writing thus –Everything is possible. The impossible just takes longer – couldn’t agree more with you, Dan. Another thing I totally agree upon with Dan Brown is the fact that All grown ups are children growing old, as quoted in his latest book Inferno. To sum it all up, Dan Brown is the most cool person I know to exist in this crazy world. He is a genius, an amazing artist of thoughts, highly creative, and truly human in the perfect sense.

We all need someone in our lives, now and then, to remind us of the beauty of life – for me, that someone is Dan Brown. Among the few people I would really like to meet, first on the list is Dan. Plus, knowing that his date of birth is the same as mine, well… that is something every fan would want after all, to be born on the same day as their favorite!

All of Dan’s works are amazing in their self; each book is ingenious in a way the other isn’t and so forth. Here is a collection of all his wonderful works, which I think everyone should check out since these are those few treasures in the world that ought to be discovered as soon as possible!

 

Digital Fortress

When the NSA’s invincible code-breaking machine encounters a mysterious code it cannot break, the agency calls its head cryptographer, Susan Fletcher, a brilliant and beautiful mathematician. What she uncovers sends shock waves through the corridors of power. The NSA is being held hostage … not by guns or bombs, but by a code so ingeniously complex that if released it would cripple U.S. intelligence. Caught in an accelerating tempest of secrecy and lies, Susan Fletcher battles to save the agency she believes in. Betrayed on all sides, she finds herself fighting not only for her country but also for her life, and in the end, for the life of the man she loves.

 

 

 

 

Deception Point

A shocking scientific discovery. A conspiracy of staggering brilliance. A thriller unlike any you’ve ever read….

When a NASA satellite discovers an astonishingly rare object buried deep in the Arctic ice, the floundering space agency proclaims a much-needed victory — a victory with profound implications for NASA policy and the impending presidential election. To verify the authenticity of the find, the White House calls upon the skills of intelligence analyst Rachel Sexton. Accompanied by a team of experts, including the charismatic scholar Michael Tolland, Rachel travels to the Arctic and uncovers the unthinkable: evidence of scientific trickery — a bold deception that threatens to plunge the world into controversy. But before she can warn the president, Rachel and Michael are ambushed by a team of assassins. Fleeing for their lives across a desolate and lethal landscape, their only hope for survival is to discover who is behind this masterful plot. The truth, they will learn, is the most shocking deception of all.

 

Angels & Demons (Robert Langdon Series #1)

When world-renowned Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is summoned to a Swiss research facility to analyze a mysterious symbol—seared into the chest of a murdered physicist—he discovers evidence of the unimaginable: the resurgence of an ancient secret brotherhood known as the Illuminati … the most powerful underground organization ever to walk the earth. The Illuminati has now surfaced to carry out the final phase of its legendary vendetta against its most hated enemy—the Catholic Church.

Langdon’s worst fears are confirmed on the eve of the holy conclave, when a messenger of the Illuminati announces they have hidden an unstoppable time bomb at the very heart of Vatican City. With the countdown under way, Langdon jets to Rome to join forces with Vittoria Vetra, a beautiful and mysterious Italian scientist, to assist the Vatican in a desperate bid for survival.

Embarking on a frantic hunt through sealed crypts, dangerous catacombs, deserted cathedrals, and even the most secretive vault on earth, Langdon and Vetra follow a 400-year-old trail of ancient symbols that snakes across Rome toward the long-forgotten Illuminati lair … a clandestine location that contains the only hope for Vatican salvation.

 

The Da Vinci Code (Robert Langdon Series #2)

An ingenious code hidden in the works of Leonardo da Vinci. A desperate race through the cathedrals and castles of Europe. An astonishing truth concealed for centuries . . . unveiled at last.

While in Paris, Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is awakened by a phone call in the dead of the night. The elderly curator of the Louvre has been murdered inside the museum, his body covered in baffling symbols. As Langdon and gifted French cryptologist Sophie Neveu sort through the bizarre riddles, they are stunned to discover a trail of clues hidden in the works of Leonardo da Vinci—clues visible for all to see and yet ingeniously disguised by the painter.

Even more startling, the late curator was involved in the Priory of Sion—a secret society whose members included Sir Isaac Newton, Victor Hugo, and Da Vinci—and he guarded a breathtaking historical secret. Unless Langdon and Neveu can decipher the labyrinthine puzzle—while avoiding the faceless adversary who shadows their every move—the explosive, ancient truth will be lost forever.

 

The Lost Symbol (Robert Langdon Series #3)

Famed Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon answers an unexpected summons to appear at the U.S. Capitol Building. His planned lecture is interrupted when a disturbing object—artfully encoded with five symbols—is discovered in the building. Langdon recognizes in the find an ancient invitation into a lost world of esoteric, potentially dangerous wisdom. When his mentor Peter Solomon—a longstanding Mason and beloved philanthropist—is kidnapped, Langdon realizes that the only way to save Solomon is to accept the mystical invitation and plunge headlong into a clandestine world of Masonic secrets, hidden history, and one inconceivable truth . . . all under the watchful eye of Dan Brown’s most terrifying villain to date. Set within the hidden chambers, tunnels, and temples of Washington, D.C., The Lost Symbol is an intelligent, lightning-paced story with surprises at every turn–Brown’s most exciting novel yet.

 

Inferno (Robert Langdon Series #4)

In his international blockbusters The Da Vinci Code,Angels & Demons, and The Lost Symbol, Dan Brown masterfully fused history, art, codes, and symbols. In this riveting new thriller, Brown returns to his element and has crafted his highest-stakes novel to date.

In the heart of Italy, Harvard professor of symbology Robert Langdon is drawn into a harrowing world centered on one of history’s most enduring and mysterious literary masterpieces . . . Dante’s Inferno.

Against this backdrop, Langdon battles a chilling adversary and grapples with an ingenious riddle that pulls him into a landscape of classic art, secret passageways, and futuristic science. Drawing from Dante’s dark epic poem, Langdon races to find answers and decide whom to trust . . . before the world is irrevocably altered.

 

Filed under: Books Tagged: books, writer

Charred Hearts

We love. We fear. That is how we break, ultimately. The cold globules of sand we are created from turn to ashes and dust in the end – that is their fate after all. Everything that sees the light of creation has to lose itself in the darkness of destruction. Slowly, this world will tear apart. All the glitter will fall into a dark and deadly abyss. There will be no you, there will be no me; only the silence in between. Come to that place we once called home. I think they have it under their radar now. That way, the bodies you slice will turn up at my door and hence, the blame is all but ours. It’s very easy sometimes to get yourself immersed in hate. It has the look of an angel but the mind of a demon. No machine they build can tell you how much you are loved. Sing in the old rain, it will make your voice echo in deserted, crumbled heaps of my heart. Because all we are, in the end, is nothing but dust in the wind.

Everywhere and nowhere – that is where your aimless soul is now. We are nothing but our memories. Just as the snow of blood falls on a frozen ground, their hope drains out of their eyes and they fall – like angels cast down out of heaven. I have wings, you know. You just don’t see them due to the blinding light they emit. Music bakes my soul, whereas it shatters yours. We can’t save everyone, they say. But what if there is no ‘everyone’ to be saved in the first place? Just a drop of water in a writhing sea; that is how much our tears are worth to them in this modern age of science and corruption. We speak with blackened tongues. No amount of words can tell you the importance of how much you are worth. In a room that is all noise and darkness, my thoughts shine on for evermore. The door opens and a king wearing a crown of my fear walks in. He takes me by the hand and promises me to make me his queen in his empire of nightmares. I wish I could refuse – but we are all slaves of our own selves.

Listen to the hiss of the morning start as it passes by you through the air, like an arrow let out from the bow of the salty skies. How you walk, how you dream – it is all a mystery they can’t ever figure out. But just sit tight; life is all a nightmare, but it all falls apart sooner than you know. Expectations don’t mean anything when you don’t know if you can trust the one you have them for. But then again, what is trust if nothing but the broken flower of a promise floating in a dead garden called Ignorance? They will make a violin out of our broken heartstrings. But it won’t produce any melody for our hearts are charred. 

Filed under: Amateur, Human Nature, Life Tagged: amateur, heart, human nature, life, random

Cinnamon & Cheese

Can we be immortal? ask the ones with blind love. Just pull the trigger and let your dreams bleed in on themselves. I’ll take the blame and accept the penalty. They – who are they? Are they the people sitting behind thrones, posing as kings and queens, or are they those faceless clowns controlling where our money goes and in which bar we go to get wasted? Are they the ones who write our death sentence, or are they the buyers of our innocence? Are they the jugglers playing in a game called politics, or just lost ashes and dust of what they can never achieve?

We all find magic amazing without actually believing in it. Karma is the stranger you meet when you discover yourself. It is always dressed in green – the color that represents your envy for yourself. Sing along this chorus. But do you know it is the one they will be playing at your funeral? I’m not going to throw my heart out at my sleeve. You can go ahead. It will be chopped off before you get time to make sure it stays put. I love screaming in my mind; relieves my demons. You are the black sheep grazing in the field of your myriad sins. The only thing you will find there is the sun blazing on your back. All this light will engulf you. Be sure you go blind before it does.

Paint me in the color of your thoughts – it will make it easier for me to understand you. Sometimes, we feel so overwhelmed that our feelings can’t be put into either words or thoughts. For me, music has that effect. It is the only thing that makes me feel so infinite, so infinite that I find myself something that no one will see or understand or try to look for. This is the road I get lost on. There are all these strange signs here I can’t decipher. But I am not the only one to come across this lost road. We all reach there sooner or later in our lives, whether we realize it or not. When we do reach there, we need someone to tell us the meaning of those strange signs, to help us figure out, to help us walk that path that we can’t walk on by ourselves. For me, I’ve got my other half to be that special someone. For most of the rest of us, that special someone turns out to be someone we least expected to be there. That is the irony of life. It is unpredictable like that; but beautiful nonetheless, if only you know where and how to look.

You can either be black or white; fallen on victorious; a rose or a thorn; a scream or a whisper; a moment or a decade. But whatever you are, you are something. You are there, here, everywhere…and nowhere at the same time, for we are but finite milestones of moments floating aimlessly in this indefiniteness. You can either see or chose to ignore. You can either be or forget. You can either consume or starve. You can either be the taste or let the taste be you. Because in the end, we are neither the sun nor the earth. No one is united, lying on the plate of Fate. No one is completely cinnamon and cheese. Either it is the aroma of cinnamon or the melting cheese lying in the sun that defines us. 

Filed under: Amateur, Human Nature Tagged: amateur, human nature

When We Disappear

I will steal the night from its silent cradle and carry it upon my back. All you have to do is steal the sun from its furnace. Put the cream of stars so that you don’t burn. These sounds we hear, these mistakes we paint with our blood, these forests in our minds we wander aimlessly into – everything is ours to burn. Your smiles come and go. My answers question the silence you escape into. Your voice cuts through my ignorance. My intentions harden your resolve. No escape from here, they say. But we know better. We always do.

Sometimes the only things you see are the ones you never thought existed. So look again in the depths of your personality. Your eyes will brush against flacks of mirrors floating there in the depths. Swallow the sea. Sail in my dreams. Conquer their defeats. Hunt my fears. Aim for their guilty thoughts. All your intentions, they are black drops on your clear heart. Don’t let them see us cry or hide or scared. Daggers of their words shatter the windows of our consciousness. Let you faults shine. Maybe they can lighten the darkness in me.

These days, I hide in a box placed no one knows where. Come home to me in milestones of moments floating by. I will always come back to you – no matter the price, loners always find each other. I try to be all these things I don’t fully comprehend myself. There is only as much as one can desire for. When the curtain of Reality envelops me in it, I can’t see your face in the crowd. Up in the backstage, I am surrounded by all these faces wearing masks of something they don’t know they possess. I want to fight or at least die trying. Maybe you do too. We want to be there for each other without knowing where the other will be to begin with. We wish to protect and be protected from something that is yet invisible to us. We love in a blindness; break in a pool of our ignorance and mistakes; sway in the mist of our cowardice – but the ends justify the means after all. I may be weak, but my weakness is strong enough to stand by with you as you fall. We can forget everything, these petty matters that define us now, and easily get lost in ourselves. Because,

They will only see us when we disappear.

Filed under: Amateur, Human Nature, Life Tagged: amateur, heart, human nature, life, loss, mistakes, random, realization

The Things We Do For Love

How long has it been? I ask the sentinels standing guard around the walls of my heart. Instead of answering, they build more walls, to keep my fears and my feelings and my doubts trapped inside the now deteriorating chambers of my heart. Why do I have to keep these things trapped inside? In the name of Love.

There is a little girl crying at the top of the stairs. Her mother shot her father and then her siblings. She was drunk and drugged, so she did not know what she was doing. But why was she drunk and drugged in the first place? To keep her family from having to bear her mood swings. As an escape from all that pain and regret, she mostly kept herself in a lost world. She did not want others around her to get hurt, afraid she might do something wrong to them. So why did she keep herself  locked up in unconsciousness most of the time? In the name of Love.

The old man in the weapons store sells all the destructive weapons, weapons that mostly end a life more than save one, for the money that comes along with it. He has been in this trade for quiet  a while now. No enemies, no mess. Never ask, never get shot. Those are the only rules the old man knows to live by. Every day, the old man looks upon smiling, deceptive faces that hide malice behind those pathetic smiles. He knows they will buy a gun and go kill someone, probably for the wrong means and all for the wrong reasons. But he still sits there smiling, peaceful, stashing the money he gets neatly in a pink box placed under his desk. At the end of each day, he goes to his house, climbs the stairs despite his bent vertebra, and opens the door to his paralyzed granddaughter. He gives her the money, and she keeps it among the piles he gave her all the days before. When the amount reaches the required value, he will retire from his business, event though he knows he will probably get killed himself just for quitting. So why does he go through all that risk every single day of his now old life, smile a fake smile on criminal faces who he knows are on their way to smear blood on the walls of someone’s peaceful home? In the name of love.

When the night falls around these empty streets, a creature of the night hunts down every man and woman who walks around the street corners and stabs a knife in their back, thinking one of those men and woman might be the one who took the life of his wife 10 years ago. In a justice-less world of today, the case was dropped due to ‘insufficient evidence’. Hence, the creature of the night took the matter into his own hands – to take revenge, he lurks every night in the corners, waiting for a figure to show up in the shadows. When it does, he swiftly yet strongly pushes the thin blade into the back of  a living, breathing person. Ends a life right there and then, imagining how the life would have drained from his wife’s body. So why does this creature kill strangers every night? In the name of Love.

They say Love is the most natural, beautiful thing in this world – yet the worst things we do, we do in the name of Love.

Filed under: Amateur, Human Nature, Life Tagged: amateur, heart, human nature, life, love

My Scars & My Flaws

I was born in a silence that envelops me now. It is the shadow I have now. The moments I lost are now lying in a transparent box in my mind. They are what shape my memories. We are never too black nor too white; we are grey. Every life has its own song. When that life quiets down, the song becomes part of nature’s orchestra. Nobody will be there waiting for me on the sidewalks of my defeat. As soon as the train of my thought stops, I hope to see a light at the end of the tunnel. People tell me all sorts of things – scientists will come up with all sorts of formulae and theories to explain my out of the box behavior, philosophers will present their best philosophies to simplify my complexity, politicians will display before me all ways to corrupt my unexplained agendas, doctors will try to make a cure for all my dysfunctions. But in the end, what has broken me will be what will mend me. They say no one is born perfect, that our mistakes can be learnt from, that pain is only there to make us stronger – but what if all the ugliness is what defines us? What if each wrong pattern inside us is what gives birth to the right one? What if our imperfections are just beautiful perfections waiting to shine in the light of our realization? They say time heals all wounds but it doesn’t; it just deepens and covers them well enough to be invisible. Nothing can be fully perfected, fully righted, because if it could, there would be no beauty to come out from that ugliness in the first place. We are all ashes and dust – but then this very dust and ash is what gives rise to something greater once more. All that we are is one big mess waiting to explode into tiny bits of perfection. I don’t care anymore about hiding my scars or my mistakes or my flaws – they are the ugliness inside me which radiates the beauty inside me. They are what make me who I am. The world is just too absorbed in fake, materialistic beauty to see it yet. What holds true is often lying beneath thick, sticky, hideous surfaces. Not everyone has the ability or the power or the will to pass those surfaces and reach the bottom to find what lies beneath, beneath the scars and the flaws. Until then, until the moment someone comes to meet me beneath the surfaces, I will just be a speck of dust floating in the nothingness of my creation.

Filed under: Amateur, Human Nature, Life Tagged: amateur, heart, human nature, life, mistakes

Love Junkie

Laughing and crying and lying and sleeping and loving and hating and screaming and enjoying – it is all the same to you. So where will you go now, after all the empires you built have crumbled down to ashes and dust? Will you pray to the heavens for a miracle? Or will you thrash down to the core of the earth to find refuge and comfort in the hot boiling lava? Can you answer them? Will you answer them? Swear an oath. Break a promise. Dive headlong into a sea of mistakes. Come out renewed. But all that will be left for you then will be empty, callous faces to stare at as they glare at you menacingly. We crossed paths once before, as I remember it now. You were an adventurer then while I was a wayward. You had a stack of books hanging from your shoulder while I had broken, bleeding wings on mine. We journeyed through the echoing woodlands of Desolation. The  salty skies and stars were our blankets at night. In the mornings we bathed in the thoughts and dreams that sang to us in the night-time. When I questioned, you believed. When I  killed, you gave in. Into the wild, reckless valleys of the unknown we marched on and on and on – until the serpent of misguidance stung me in the mind deep enough to paralyze my consciousness. Now I don’t know where you are, or who you prey upon. Are your victims regretful souls, or are they all clowns and magicians in your show you call love? People think you have them fooled – but in the end, they will turn around the corner and come face-to-face with you. So beautiful yet so cunning. Soundless but screaming in a silence of your own. The years have made you good at masking your emotions; but not from the sentinels standing guard in your heart. They hear your screams of anguish, hidden from the rest of the world. Come and go, these days of your glory. Die without a name on your tombstone. The inevitable will come and knock at your door. When it does, I won’t be there. You see, there is a difference between being addicted to love, and being a love junkie. As an addict of this drug called love, you can not do without it; it will hurt more if you give it up. Whereas as being a love junkie, you don’t necessarily need it and you can do well without it; you only take it from the pleasure of it, not for the need or beauty of it. There is no rehab for people like you, who drain others’ energy from what they hold dear. The angel of mercy doesn’t hold its record for you. There is a lake in a land far away by the name of Insight. Go drown yourself in it. When you reach the depths, I will meet you there.

Filed under: Amateur Tagged: deception, heart, life, love, misconception, taking advantage

Help Me Close My Eyes

These city lights are too blinding. Flames flicker and fade, flicker and fade. Your words too seem like daggers of sharp, painful light that pierce my aching eyes. Even through all the blindness, I see piles of broken dreams littered here and there. There is a dark cloud of misery filling the sky,pouring down heavy dark drops of hate rain. It can neither be stopped nor contained except by the rays of Hope. Bloodlines run through my hands. I stumble in the crowd that has gathered outside the house of the crazies. Their screams are loud enough to drain our all other sound.

I walk up to an empty dilapidated house with shattered windows. Only the smell of fear comes from within. Next to it is a large candy shop but now it only sells drugs and poisons. A hospital down the block is now a house for the demons and ghosts lurking silently in the night, finding a prey to take over. Along the sidewalks, atop buildings, behind bars – every place bathes heavily in a blinding light of ignorance and pain.

Every where I look, there is anguish and destruction. I can’t climb a tree to rest upon as they cut away all the trees in their delirious state. No sea is left for me to drown myself into. There are no mountains left on whose tops I could go to sit on; they have all been blown open by bombs and fire. The wilderness of the jungles and deserts has been laid bare too, so I can’t hide there either. No cave left for me to hide in because every cave is now filled with neanderthals of agony.

I am afraid to go to sleep, afraid they might alter me somehow in my slumber through their myriads of drugs and machines – afraid I might not be myself when I wake up. I am not sure anymore of whom to trust, of which hand to call a helping hand and which to call a killer hand. Maybe my dreams will just be something they have implanted to distract me from my real identity, to make me forget and forget and forget. What these ears hear now, what these eyes see now – it is all a fabrication now.

So help me close my eyes, for I am too scared to see the horror that we have become now.

Help me close my eyes and dream a sweet, long dream from which I can never wake up from.

Help me close my eyes.

Help me dream.

Filed under: Amateur Tagged: corruption, death, depression, destruction, human nature, negative world

Breakfast With An Escape

Here is a cup of tea for you. I have poured a bit of your mistakes in it.  Drink it and fade. Then, when you wake up next morning, maybe you will understand the choices I made. All we are is but dying moths, floating in the sands of Infinity, with no ending, no start, no purpose, no aim and no soul. Drop by drop, this rain swelters over your sinful head. I have given up trying now, for there is no use in trying when there is no bird to catch. You are the answer to the question I once thought never existed. We all make mistakes. But not everyone has the ability to get up and dust off the dirt from the clothes that cling to our delicate, mortal frame. Planets revolve around a misty dream of the lost spheres. A thousand winds howl out your name, yet you sleep in the sweat of your fear. Manage without my strength. No one will give you the sword of courage to fight with. These days we reminiscence upon are nothing but moments of milestones, in a dark valley of Time. I will make you cards and hang them in your backyard. Look upon them and think of the beauty that once resided in us, before it is eaten up by the darkness that now engulfs us. Drums and drumbeat echo in your house. Or is it just the dying yet notorious sound of your heartbeat? May we survive the end of the world, to walk in the gardens that lie beyond our imaginations, in a place we don’t yet know of. Don’t look back now. Just walk on. They won’t catch you if you keep on going. Then,when the night falls with its warm and dark curtains wrapped around our shaking shoulders, we will sing in the orchestra performing by the starlight and the moon. Roses line some graves while thorns fill the king’s throne. I’ll make you coffee with more spices in it than sugar. Everybody is looking at you like they can see through you. Maybe they can. All I see in there is a sandcastle being washed over by the salty sea. Along with tea and coffee, I will make you a toast and spread butter and some love on it. Maybe your hatred will lick it all away, but the breadcrumbs will stick on your hands, fall on your clothes. Sounds will come from outside the door you have labelled as your secret library. After eons of Regret, you will finish your breakfast and go to the place you call your escape.

An escape from all that is true.

An escape from all that is real.

An escape from all that is me.

Filed under: Amateur